COMPARISON OF CLINICO-PATHOLOGICAL FEATURES AND PROGNOSIS OF TRIPLE-NEGATIVE AND NON-TRIPLE-NEGATIVE FEMALE BREAST CANCER PATIENTS

BACKGROUNDTriple-negative breast cancer patients have no expression of Oestrogen Receptor (ER), Progesterone Receptor (PR) and there is neither expression nor amplification of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 in a tumour.But non-triple negative breast cancer patients have either oestrogen receptor or progesterone receptor or both positive with or without amplification of Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 in a tumour.The purpose of this retrospective study is to compare and analyse the clinico-pathological features, recurrence, metastasis and prognosis of triple-negative breast cancer patients and non-triple negative breast cancer patients. MATERIALS AND METHODSA retrospective descriptive study for a total of 200 stage III female breast cancer patients (100 triple-negative patients and 100 non-triple-negative patients) were diagnosed and treated at the Department of Radiotherapy, T.D Medical College Hospital, Alappuzha from January 1 st 2011 to December 31 st 2011.The clinical features, recurrence, metastasis and prognosis of the two groups were compared. RESULTSThe triple-negative breast cancer patients were characterised as younger age, higher histological grade, bigger tumour size, higher clinical stage at diagnosis, more recurrence and metastasis, lower 5-year disease free survival rate and 5-year overall survival rate.The lungs, liver and brain were the first three most common sites of metastases. CONCLUSIONIn our study, we found that triple-negative breast cancer was a distinct subgroup of breast cancer with particular clinico-pathologic behaviour.Compared with the non-triple-negative breast cancer, triple-negative breast cancer was characterised by more aggressive behaviour, metastasis tendency and lower disease-free survival and overall survival rate.This result suggested that characteristics like family history, premenopausal status, tumour size, histological grade of triple-negative breast cancer patients had more local relapse and metastases than that of in non-triple-negative breast cancer that was statistically significant.